Happy Kombucha Reviews 69

TrustScore 3 out of 5

3.1

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Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Great service, great communication and great products. I have ordered from Happy Kombucha a few times over the last couple of years and have always had good service, I mainly order milk kefir grains w... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Company website on posting states to expect delays due to postal strikes...there are no postal strikes. Tracking number not recognised by royal mail. No attempts at delivery. Company is refusing to pr... See more

Company replied

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I never received the item. This was a courier issue which could easily be sorted by retailer. According to DPD the parcel was delivered to a neighbour called FGHHI. There is no one... See more

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

I am very impressed how well the fermentation crock I purchased was packed. Very well protected. I bought one from elsewhere and it arrived damaged, due to poor packaging. Despite some delay in disp... See more

Company details

  1. Restaurants & Bars

Information provided by various external sources

Happy Kombucha sells everything you need to make Kombucha and Kefir at home, full support, fresh healthy cultures and grains and equipment.


Contact info

3.1

Average

TrustScore 3 out of 5

69 reviews

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Hasn’t replied to negative reviews

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Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Mixed feelings...

Edited after response:
Lengthy delivery times are understandable (as I said, “fair enough”), but still worth mentioning. Swapping soaps I ordered for ones I didn’t may have been well-intended but you should have asked first. I would have been more understanding if there had actually been a note explaining in the box (and there was not) or a post-facto apology for the slip-up after I posted my review.

What I find more difficult to understand is a company rep who thinks my 3* (average) rating justifies a retreat from professionalism, a rep who may (incorrectly) believe that berating a customer (who is left out of pocket for a product she cannot use and without the one she needed) will lead to a revised rating, and a rep that arrogates to dictate where customers can or cannot leave their reviews.

True, there is a “national crisis” and many customers - myself included - will no doubt appreciate the long hours your staff put in. It is not, however, clear to me why you imagine that this crisis should shield your company from receiving ratings any less than “great”; you are, after all, predominantly a purveyor of fermented beverage supplies, not staples or medicine, and what may seem to you a selfless, even heroic, effort is likely to serve your company well too. Yes, there are many businesses that are going under because they were forced to close and/or demand has dried up overnight - and that is quite different from a company like yours who is allowed to stay open and who struggles to meet unprecedented demand. I would think you are one of the lucky ones, no?

(And for the record, our products were purchased from you under my spouse’s name in March 2020 and they arrived in the first week of this month)
————
Heard good things about their kombucha scobies so ordered a kit and 3 bars of tea tree soap from them. Not sure how the scoby is working yet but wasn’t pleased that they substituted neem soap without asking. Also, it might be better if they made it a bit clearer that their kits don’t come with tea. The order took a long time to come but they warned me in advance so fair enough.

April 13, 2020
Unprompted review
Happy Kombucha logo

Reply from Happy Kombucha

Update:
I have still been unable to find the order you are referring to. The last order placed in your name was in Nov 2019 and i have checked the address with Royal mail and we have not sent anything to your address since Nov 2019. So the order was placed in a different name and sent to a different address.

Customer are of course free to leave review wherever they like but the vast majority of reviews we receive here on trust pilot are not actually from genuine customers as you do not have to have purchased from us to review us here (unlike other sites).

Where we have had to substitute anything in orders we have either sent an email or popped a note in the order. If the email has ended up in spam then i can only apologise or if the note got lost in the packaging again ditto but we did try to let as many customers know as possible so i can only apologise if we did not manage to let you know.
If the soaps are not suitable then they can be returned (this was explained in the email and note). Our customer service team can be contacted on 01323 730091 and they will happily arrange a return, a free label can be provided and it will cost you nothing.
We generally get a weekly delivery from Faith in nature but these were suspended and all soap stock at Faith in Nature went out of stock in less than 24 hours, we did speak to some customers and they all stated that they would be happy to get any scent and would rather have a different scent than no soap at all so this is what we went with.
It was not really the fact that you left a three star review it is the fact that you thought it was ok to knock a business reputation publicly when business's are fighting to survive (even the ones still trading due to significantly higher costs) because we tried to be helpful without even giving us the opportunity to put it right. Had you given us a call we would have immediately apologised, arranged a return or issued a refund but instead you decided to leave 3 star feedback. It is not that i feel that we deserve nothing but 5 star feedback but i do feel that in exceptional times leaving potentially devastating feedback without contacting a company first is a low blow in the current climate. We were trying to be helpful, apologies that it was not appreciated in your case. If you contact our customer service team on the number above they will happily arrange a return.


Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Super grains, super kefir!

Wow my experience with Happy Kombucha is so positive and bears no resemblance to the negative reviews on here. I feel sorry for the business owners having had to deal with such negative people!

After researching thoroughly on kefir grains suppliers, I have settled on HK and my experience has been more than amazing. Great customer service over the phone, and grains arrived quickly in superb condition.

I was enjoying my very first batch of home-made kefir within 48 hours of receiving grains. It's now been a week or so, and I swear the grains have already doubled in quantity, and I sadly had to bin half so to keep making same quantity of kefir! HK's grains are really active!

My advice to anyone is to read and follow HK's detailed instructions to a tee and you really can't go wrong!

February 26, 2020
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Very happy

Very very happy with this company. The order arrived promptly. I had a question before it arrived and the delightful lady that I spoke to on the phone was very helpful and informative. I understand they are busy there, but it really felt like she had time to talk to me.

The product arrived exactly as described as well.

Very happy with this company! Thank you Happy Kombucha!

September 4, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Rude, upsetting and wrong

Note that the seller constantly changes their response to this review. Guilty conscience, perhaps?

I ordered from this company via Amazon. The product was dispatched on 2nd January and still had not arrived by 10 January (expected by 7th at the latest).

Although Royal Mail had tracked it and therefore had clearly lost it in the post (acknowledged by Happy Kombucha after my second email), the seller told me I needed to print out and sign a form so that I could be refunded. This is not compliant with Amazon’s policies. I ended up sending several emails for a refund of around £10.

Furthermore, Happy Kombucha stated that their scoby would be good for 4 weeks in transit, which is contrary to what their own website said (10 days or so). They also told me a scoby doesn’t produce waste products, which as a relatively high activity microbial culture, is impossible unless dead, frozen or freeze-dried. I have a PhD in a relevant discipline, so they probably shouldn’t have made that up.

This is poor customer service. I appreciate that small businesses need to protect themselves, but the product is their responsibility until it has been delivered to me. They did respond to my emails promptly but I would also expect an immediate refund or replacement for a product that’s been lost in the post, when they have independent evidence of this.

Following further insulting and upsetting messages from the seller, I called Amazon and they have referred Happy Kombucha to the Investigations team, but told me they couldn’t tell me the outcome.

January 11, 2019
Unprompted review
Happy Kombucha logo

Reply from Happy Kombucha

We will always ask Royal Mail to investigate ANY delivery that does not arrive as Mail fraud is rife and it cannot be stopped if cases are not investigated.
We did sent the customer a denial of receipt from to fill in but it can be filled in electronically or by hand and it is used for GDPR compliance as well as fraud prevention purposes. We have NEVER had a customer just point blankly refuse to give a denial of receipt declaration before (in fact most customers are happy to do so and like it that we do have the delivery investigated) so it would raise the question of why? The form asks you to fill in two bits (we pre fill the rest) and takes two seconds to fill in, it did not need to be signed per say just typing your name is fine. Why that would be an issue I do not know. Clearly as the customer stated in her emails to us that she was also an expert in GDPR she is an expert in everything from Kombucha to GDPR and we do state clearly on the website that kefir can survive In its packaging for up to 10 days and Kombucha for 4 weeks so I think she may have gotten confused. We would however like it to arrive much faster than that!

I apologise that the customer thinks it is unreasonable to gain her permission to use her data and I question why the customer did not want us to have the matter investigated by Royal Mail in any way shape or form and denied us permission to submit a lost mail claim on her behalf.

The customer was reported to Amazon due some red flags that were raised in comments but we did refund her, I would also add that we had always stated from the very first email that we were happy to immediately replace or refund the item (although the customer made it very clear from the start that only a refund would be acceptable)and the customer has been refunded.
We did not at any point accuse the customer of lying but we did ask if the item had not been delivered as she stated why would she be so adamant that neither ourselves or Royal mail could investigate this to find out what had a happened and why would she not give a denial of receipt statement? I do still wonder this as it is the first time this has ever happened.

Update: this is the response that we received from Amazon in regards to the customers claims:-

“I have also gone through all the buyer-seller messages for correspondence. On going through, I haven't found a single error from your side. I really appreciate your approach regarding this order and the way you have reacted to this.

This is directly copied from the email we received from Amazon.

Final Update:-
Just to clarify, as a long standing and responsible seller on Amazon we referred the case to Amazon ourselves due to the customers claims. We are always diligent in being a responsible seller and pride ourselves on how we treat our customers so when this customer was so affronted by being asked to fill in a denial of receipt declaration so we could have the delivery investigated we referred it to Amazon for them to look at (and also some policy violations we felt the customer had commited). The response above is the response we received back from Amazon. If the customer would like to contact us we will happily provide all Amazon case numbers and correspondence that proves that the above is an honest copy of the correspondence that we received. We have received no correspondence from Amazon about this customer in regards to their claims of an investigation. We can back up every word quoted from Amazon with the original genuine Amazon correspondence given by Amazon themselves.
We will be making no further comment on this now.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Strongly Disagree with that Horrible Review.

I cannot agree with the dreadful review of the milk kefir grains from Happy Kombucha. I have had water kefir grains from them in the past and they were excellent. However, I decided to try the milk kefir grains and sent off for some so I could make goat milk kefir. The grains were posted on a Tuesday and arrived by lunchtime on Wednesday. Twenty minutes later, they were in 250mls of goat milk and by the following morning, the grains were fermenting and looking and smelling very happy. This is a great company that gives excellent service and plenty of helpful advice to the novice.

August 23, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

I bought a scoby

I bought a scoby, tea, sugar and temperature gage from Happy Kombucha and both the products and the service were excellent. The instructions were brilliant and remain in my kitchen to ensure that all future batches work well (I'm on my fourth). Also, credit to the quality of the scoby as I started my first batch during the cold snap in December and it still worked fine. I would not hesitate to buy from this company again as I now, quite literally, have great tasting kombucha on tap.

January 20, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Amazing people

Amazing people! Have used them for a long while and they are seriously clued up. Cannot believe someone would write such horrible things about a small company that could cause a lot of damage. Their scoby are the best (we have tried many different ones) and they are very lovely and accommodating.

November 28, 2017
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful products and amazing service

I was so horrified by what I read in the previous review I had to post my own, I have been buying from Happykombucha for many years and have never received anything but fantastic service. Their customer service is amazing, i have had issues with my water kefir (not enough minerals in my water) and the lady I spoke to and emailed with the issue (it's true they do ALWAYS ask for pictures) could not have been more helpful. These are live cultures so sometimes things can go wrong (I have killed my sourdough twice by neglecting it) but I have found them to be nothing but helpful and have saved products that I thought would have to go in the bin many times and I have had a refund on a salt lamp (faulty lead not their fault) so I think the previous reviewer is just making it up. Happy kombucha are my go to company for anything fermented and I live in London so I can grab their stuff from Planet Organic if I need to rather than wait for the post.
Ps it's true they NEVER ask you to do a review. I get fed up with review request every time you buy something. In 5 years they have never asked.

September 22, 2017
Happy Kombucha logo

Reply from Happy Kombucha

Thank you for your feedback. We do value all feedback good and bad when it is honest and genuine. We look forward to your continued custom,

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